Winning picture disqualified from Wildlife Photographer of the year contest and pulled from Moors Valley exhibition (From Bournemouth Echo)

Winning picture disqualified from Wildlife Photographer of the year contest and pulled from Moors Valley exhibition

12:30pm Saturday 23rd January 2010

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CONTROVERSY has dogged the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest and just two days before the competition exhibition was due to be unveiled at Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood, the winning entry has been disqualified.

The picture, entitled the Storybook Wolf, by Spanish photographer Jose Luis Rodriguez, prompted a long-running debate as to whether it featured a wild wolf as the photographer claimed or a trained animal.

The photographer denies the wolf is a model wolf.

The competition organisers, however, effectively ended the argument on Wednesday by disqualifying the photograph, which will not now be included in the Moors Valley exhibition, which runs until February 28.

The judges have also decided there will not now be an overall winner.

In a statement, Louise Emerson, from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition office, said: “It saddens us to confirm that after a careful and thorough investigation into the image the Storybook Wolf, the co-owners of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, have disqualified the winning entry of the photographer José Luis Rodríguez.

“The judging panel was reconvened and concluded that it was likely that the wolf featured in the image was an animal model that can be hired for photographic purposes and, as a result, that the image had been entered in breach of Rule 10 of the competition.”

The photographer, however, strongly denies that the wolf is a model.

• Because the disqualification was only announced on Wednesday, after Saturday's Daily Echo Magazine went to press, the photograph appears in a feature about the exhibition.

The article includes more stunning images which were entered in the competition, including the Highly Commended Terns in a Dive Queue by Winchester photographer Paul Sansome plus more details about the exhibition at Moors Valley.

See a selection of our favourite pictures from the Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition here

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